Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,53

on the stoop of the haunted carriage house amused me. Dimitri also said Zoltan was working on translating the notebook. That was promising. I wondered how much he would charge me.

“Val,” Zav said, calling me back. By my name. Huh.

Greemaw stepped away from the rock wall and faced me. “There are not as many caves in that area as there are higher in the mountains, but there are a couple dozen. Many will not be easily accessible by a human vehicle, but a dragon could reach them.”

“The advantage of flight—and of not needing a runway.” I looked at Zav, wondering if he planned to tote me all over the foothills on his back.

But he’d stepped away and wore an abstracted expression, like someone listening to a podcast and not paying any attention to his surroundings.

“I will show you the locations.” Greemaw gestured for me to approach her.

She radiated magic similarly to, if to a lesser degree than, Zav, but I didn’t feel wary around her. Something about her ancient eyes made me trust her, so I didn’t flinch away when she lifted a massive hand and rested it on top of my head. When Zav had intruded on my thoughts, he’d left desires to do his bidding. Greemaw gently placed locations in my mind. Her point of view was strange, often looking up from the earth instead of down from above, and I knew I would struggle to translate the locations to spots on my map, but I did my best to remember each of the areas.

While Zav stood, his gaze toward the canopy of branches hiding the valley from the outside world, I put dots on the dirt map. After each one, I looked up for confirmation. Greemaw hesitated a few times, but I got a lot of nods. Once we’d marked all of the spots, I took a picture of the dirt map with my phone.

“I must go for a time,” Zav said.

“Go?” I asked.

“Back to my home.” He looked at Greemaw. “Family matters.”

I thought of Moonleaf’s words of how Zav’s family was struggling to maintain control.

“Does Dob’s presence here have something to do with it?” I asked, even though he was looking at Greemaw, not me, and probably didn’t want me to butt in.

Zav looked sharply at me. “It is possible he was sent to distract me. Or to vanquish me here where there would be no witnesses.”

Ugh, I thought to Sindari. I knew I wasn’t crazy to worry about what would happen if I was riding on his back when that other dragon showed up.

I am surprised that you did not insist on coming here in your automobile.

It was faster this way.

Zav looked at the map, then faced me. “I will take you back to your city. When I return, we will find Dobsaurin with this information Greemaw has provided us.”

Even though he was far more polite with Greemaw than with me, he didn’t thank her. Maybe please and thank you weren’t in the dragon vocabulary. You’d think a race with a language that favored words twenty characters long would have room to squeeze in pleasantries.

“How long will you be gone?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

If he was gone as long as he’d disappeared last time—weeks—I doubted I would have the patience to wait for his help with the panther brothers. And if I had to deal with them by myself, this detour and research for him would have been a waste of time.

No, I corrected. That wasn’t true. If the silver dragon was kidnapping people, I needed to know everything about him, because as Willard had pointed out, it would fall to me to deal with him. Which I might also have to do on my own if Zav didn’t return in time. A bleak thought.

15

Someone had broken into my apartment again.

I stood in the hallway, staring at the door slightly ajar, all four of the deadbolts I’d coerced the landlord into letting me install unlocked. A three-year-old with a couple of hairpins could have thwarted the cheap doorknob lock but not the deadbolts. They weren’t even visible from the outside.

Sighing, I summoned Sindari. Whoever had done this had probably long since gone, but there was a chance he or she was still inside. Or they.

I didn’t sense anyone magical, but mundane humans could ransack my apartment as effectively as an irritated panther shifter.

There is nobody inside, Sindari informed me after he materialized. Do you wish me to go in first in case the thief left